Travels in Turkey Part 3 (Continuing South)

The weather cooperating with our plans to head southward, we woke early to get underway while the seas were calm.  Motor sailing the whole way, with the genoa out we reached Fethiye Korfezi (the bay of Fethiye) about 4 hours later.  On viewing the first little bay we came to, we decided it would be perfect for our first night in the area – because it was rather narrow and there were already a few boats med-moored to the rocks on one side, we went in as close as we dared (beside another smaller catamaran) and did the same.  The bay was called Kizilkuyruk Köyü. The water was clear and warm and as soon as we jumped in for a swim and a snorkel, we saw a large turtle – it was the first of many we would see along the Turkish coastline, much to our delight!

Although one of the ‘dreaded’ Turkish gulets came in and anchored beside us late in the day, they were not noisy (thank goodness) and we had a peaceful night.

We didn’t move very far the next day as the weather remained calm, so we motored just 2nm north to the next bay called Küçük Kuyruk.  There were only two other boats in here and we anchored stern-to the end with our bows facing the entrance to the bay – this was fortuitous as we later discovered the prevailing wind came nose-on and so we were well-situated.  This was another lovely and quiet bay with lots of turtle watching during the afternoon and early the next morning.

Our quiet anchorage

Tad having a dip in the clear warm water

At this point it might do well to advise people coming to Turkey how the majority of boats are required to moor themselves – of course if there is room and holding is adequate, hanging off the pick is ideal.  In many cases, however, this is not possible and one is required to ‘med-moor’ (ie. Drop the anchor and back into the shore, taking a line (or two in the case of catamarans) ashore and tying these to something secure.  Many parts of Turkey (particularly Göçek Korfezi) strongly object to tying to trees (obviously too many boats have pulled them out in strong winds) so you are limited to the rocks, or in some places, bollards which have been placed there for yachts.  The other thing to note is that these anchorages are often quite deep – where you need to drop your anchor can be 25m plus, so by the time you back into your ‘parking spot’ you have put out a fair bit of chain.  Because we have such a shallow draught (1.1m) we can back into places fairly close to shore, but we saw plenty of monohulls tethered at some distance from shore which doesn’t work if you are in a narrow bay.

A Turkish 'gulet' anchored nearby